Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

I know this was a relatively recent post, but I am still at a loss. Whenever I load the game, the menus behave as if I were holding down the "up" key. Only Recettear is affected, so I doubt its something wrong with my keyboard.

So far, I have done the following to try to remedy the problem: Rebound the controls multiple times. Unplugged the keyboard. Completely reinstalled the game. So far nothing has helped, and none of the emails I sent to Carpe Fulgur customer support over a week and a half ago were ever answered. Does anyone know of a remedy that I have overlooked??

I've experienced similar problems in other games. Now, this is just an educated guess and by no means is guaranteed to be right or even close.

Stuck keys are generally caused by dying keyboards. Now you may ask: how come it only happens in some games/app? And that's just the thing, when some keyboards start dying, the symptoms may only show up in some apps. It's most likely due to the fact that different input systems may be affected by a dying keyboard to different degrees. For example, a dying keyboard may function reasonably via Direct Raw Input, but can have problems with MS Messging Input. It's therefore possible that your keyboard may be dying, but only certain input systems are affected. You may want to try the game with a different keyboard and see whether that helps or not.

Alternatively, it may be due to partial incompatibility with Steam. I spent most of my time with the original version of Recettear, and never have I even once encountered or heard of anyone encountering this problem. It wouldn't surprise me, since Steam is known to not work perfectly well with old technology/engines, and Recettear's engine is pretty old. I can only recommend trying to run the game with Steam overlay turned off (in the game's properties menu).

Finally, it's fairly unlikely that you will get any support from Carpe Fulgur. First of all, Carpe Fulgur is a localisation group composed of three people - two translators and one artist. I don't think any of them is a software technician. The original game was made by EGS, a doujin circle in Japan (something that's even more "indie" than indie). Further, for the past year Carpe Fulgur has been busy translating the second chapter of Trails in the Sky, a very awesome series that is coming to Steam.

One last remedy is to try playing the game with a controller. If the problem still persists then the problem is most likely software-related, wheares if the problem goes away then the problem is hardware-related - either with your keyboard or keyboards in general.

Huh, I really hope its not a sign of a dying keyboard- considering I just got this K90 two summers ago. Additionally, Recettear is the only program out of over 50 games, apps etc that is effected. I'll give it another shot with the Steam overlay turned off when I get the chance.

Since CF is so small, would there be any greater likelihood of EGS responding to customer feedback?

CF may be small, but it's at least an organised group. EGS on the other hand is not an indie developer. It's a doujin circle of loosely gathered developers. They also only speak Japanese. =X It's quite a miracle that something that niche even in Japan managed to make it all the way to the West. I suppose you can always try asking Steam for support too.

It's not a dying keyboard -- not if it happens reproducibly in exactly one game. When programming a game, you typically have to use a virtual key setup that records key events and keeps track between frames whether the key is up or down via flags. Any number of weird glitches can cause key flags to trip, events to be missed, or keytracking objects to initialize incorrectly.

Well that's just great. As a slight update, I just re-verified the integrity of the cache which didn't help. Then uninstalled, and wiped all local Recettear files and redownloaded/installed. Same problem. Guess its off to Steam Support...

Hey sorry I didn't respond-never got a notification. Well, unfortunately my problem is keyboard based, so I dont know why it sporatically effects you. That being said, I was contacted by another user who is having the same problems with me-albeit with a laptop. As a last resort, I have sent Steam support an email about half a week ago and have yet to hear anything.

It's not a dying keyboard -- not if it happens reproducibly in exactly one game. When programming a game, you typically have to use a virtual key setup that records key events and keeps track between frames whether the key is up or down via flags. Any number of weird glitches can cause key flags to trip, events to be missed, or keytracking objects to initialize incorrectly.

actually I have personally experienced a case where a dying keyboard causes issue for one game and one game only. I've also had an experience when a dying mouse did the same thing. Works perfectly for all other games and things like Word, Excel etc. But it just failed for that one game.

Hmm thats interesting. That being said, I had another user who messaged me with the same problem.The main difference was that he was on a laptop, yet experiencing the same level of problem as I. Additionally, he tested other Carpe Fulgur products to see if they could tide him over until the issue was resolved, and as it turns out, he experienced the same issuie. So one way or another, the problem seems to be isolated to something having to do with Carpe Fulgur's products.

I know that this is super old but I think I worked it out. I was having this problem with a couple different games and it turned out that it was the pedals connected to the PC which were doing the controlling. I unplugged them and now it works fine.

I know that this is super old but I think I worked it out. I was having this problem with a couple different games and it turned out that it was the pedals connected to the PC which were doing the controlling. I unplugged them and now it works fine.